Peaches & Tajin

Jeff and the boys were up early today, ready and waiting for Nana to come over. They loaded up her car with all their stuff, and then the four of them set off to head back to their mom. (They meet halfway between here and their home in South Carolina, about mid-Georgia area, roughly 4 hours away.) We loved having them here this past week, and we had a great together. It was so sweet seeing both of the boys taking care of the girls, and watching Addison really fall in love with them the Emerson already loved them, now that Addie was old enough to make a connection with them. We’ll miss them these next few months, and will be excited to have them come back for their spring break.

After they headed out, the girls and I had breakfast at home together, and then had a lazy morning for an hour or so. Then it was time to get dressed, and they looked adorable in new matching outfits from Nana. We took a load of stuff to donate at Goodwill, I grabbed a hot latte from Dunkin, and then we did our weekly grocery shopping at Aldi.

Emerson really loved this outfit, and felt like such a big girl, because she said “these are the pants Andie & Libby wear.” (her big cousins) And she just loved how comfy and soft they were too.

The girls had some leftover chicken & rice for lunch, and then I got them both down for a nap. I made myself some olive cheese toast for lunch (it was fine, but it wasn’t as good as when I made it for the fam at Thanksgiving) and watched some Survivor, until I fell asleep on the couch myself, for a quick 30-minute power nap.

When the girls both woke up from their naps, we played around the house a little bit, and then busted out some more Christmas presents. These are called “paint pens,” but they feel and work more like glue sticks, and they’re really nice and non-messy and dry really quickly. I think the paint pens & birdhouses were a gift from Grammy, and that was a fun little project! We also painted a bunch of random stuff on those giant pieces of paper just having fun and messing around.

But since the sun had finally come out, and the weather felt nice, we just had to go outside! We ended up staying out for about an hour, playing in the playhouse, doing “experiments” with mud and such, and going on a little adventure up into the back corner of the yard, through the “secret pathway.”

Then it was time to get dinner started. Just two weeks ago I made this exact same bacon & caramelized onion quiche, and still had most of the ingredients to make it again tonight. My pie crust was actually shattered & unusable though, so I decided to make it a crustless quiche, and it still turned out delicious. (I actually didn’t end up putting the peppers in, because I knew Emerson would eat it better without peppers.)

While the quiche was baking in the oven, Emerson put on her Mirabel costume, and we turned on the “Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl” special on Disney+, and she put on quite the show! (The real show itself was really good too, and I’m sure we’ll be watching it multiple times.)

And my quiche turned out delicious! I wish I had some green onions or chives to top mine off, but it was so good. We did however have this amazing bacon hot sauce my parents gave us, that was absolutely perfect on the bacon quiche. I also went wild and put Tajin on my peaches, and absolutely loved it. But Jeff tried it and hated it, and even spit it out, haha.

I was also so glad the quiche lifted out of the dish so cleanly, without making a giant mess.

Jeff and Nana walked in the door right as I was finishing up dinner, so their timing was perfect. His girls were so excited to see him, and have him back home with us!

Daddy and Addie had some special time together after dinner, and Emmie and Mommy worked on a puzzle together.

Both girls took a little bit of extra loves and snuggles tonight in order to get them actually ready for bed, but I was able to accomplish it eventually. Jeff was completely worn out after his long day of travel, and was asleep before I even got both girls to sleep, so it’s just me now at this point…

Last December, I just randomly, almost on accident, clicked on a season of Survivor on Netflix, when it popped up in my recommendations. Well, I was instantly obsessed with it, and watched those two seasons on Netflix pretty quickly. I soon learned there were many more seasons on Hulu & Paramount, so I “researched” the top 10 best seasons, and made a list, thinking I’d never want to watch everything. Well, turns out, I wanted to watch everything, so I ended up going back to season one, filmed & aired in 2000, and watched every single episode of every single season up until now. I got so obsessed at the beginning of 2022, I literally didn’t even read a book for the first three months of the year (and y’all know how much I love to read), because I was watching Survivor in every bit of free time I got. (Which is also why my reading count was lower this year than in years past.)

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to try to finish everything before the end of the year. And while I got very close, I just finished the last season tonight, two days past my “goal.” (I actually rewatched one season that was on Netflix, that I rewatched when I got to it again in chronological order, or else I would have finished everything before the end of the year.) While writing this post, I’ve been watching the very last episode of the most recent season of Survivor, season 43, so I’ve officially completed it. Anyways, it’s a little bit embarrassing that I watched that many episodes of a show in just 13 months, but whatever, I clearly loved it and binged it like crazy. Now I just have to wait until March 2023 until the next one starts again 🙂

So, what should I watch next?!